This course examines the interplay between food and
culture with a focus on cultural diversity and environmental sustainability.
Using the SF/Bay Area as our landscape and laboratory, students will explore multiple
examples of food production, preparation, and consumption. A production class,
students will translate their findings into stories – spoken, written,
photographic, and multimedia – to be shared within and outside the classroom.
No production experience necessary.

Thursday, 9/28: No class. (David
will be attending the Black Mountain College Conference in Asheville, North
Carolina. We will pool these hours for two Thursday night community dinners
(October 5 and November 2) at St Cyprian’s Church (Turk & Lyon).

Attendance is crucial. Missing class (or attending
class unprepared) will significantly affect your final grade. If you do miss
class, contact a classmate to find out what you missed and ask to borrow her or
his notes. Then, do it again with a different classmate. After doing this, if
you have questions email me.

Academic
Integrity

Plagiarism is using another person’s words, works,
and/or ideas without giving appropriate credit. Plagiarism is a serious
violation of academic honor and personal integrity and can result in failing an
assignment, being removed from this course, or even being asked to leave USF.
Plus, it’s just lazy.

Rules

1. No late work accepted.
2. In class and on field trips, no drinking out of non-reusable containers.

3. On Demo Days, we will share our work. If you
have no new work on Demo Day, do not come to class.

Please
note:

On numerous occasions – 3 to be exact – class takes
place outside of regular class-time. On 10/5 and 11/2, we will be attending the
St Cyprian’s community dinner until 8 pm. On 10/26, class will meet at 8 pm to
attend USF’s Performing Arts Department’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s Public Enemy. Please plan accordingly.

Golden Gate Park is a First-Year
Seminar that explores the history, built environment, mixed uses, and popular
narratives of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. As part of an accelerated
writing seminar, students will read, research, write, and edit their ways
through the park – with formal essays, informal reading responses, and
significant contributions to Wikipedia. Through readings, class discussions,
walks-in-the-park, and field trips, students will develop a broad and keen
appreciation of Golden Gate Park.

Student
Learning Outcomes

This course fulfills USF’s A2 Core
requirement. As such, over the course of the term, you will develop capability
in the following areas:

1.Critical analysis of academic
discourse: Students critically analyze linguistic and rhetorical strategies
used in long and complex texts from a variety of genres, subjects, and fields.
[Met primarily in essays 1 & 2 and in reading responses]

4.Style: Students edit their own prose to
achieve a clear and mature writing style in keeping with the conventions of
academic and/or professional discourse. [Met in all three essays, in reading
responses, and in in-class exercises]

5.Revision: Students develop their own
revision strategies for extending and enriching early drafts and for producing
polished advanced academic writing. [Met in essays 2 & 3 and in Wikipedia
project]

Course
Texts and Costs

You are required to purchase Philip J.
Dreyfus's Our Better Nature: Environment
and the Making of San Francisco. We will begin reading it second week, so
please purchase it immediately. All other readings are either free online or
emailed PDFs. All field trip costs are covered by USF’s First Year Seminar
Program.

Tuesday,
10/10: Read Barbara Berglund, “The Days of Old, the Days of Gold, the Days of
‘49”: Identity, History, and Memory at the California Midwinter International
Exposition, 1894,” The Public Historian
(Fall 2003): pp. 25-49.

Thursday,
10/12: Field/research trip to San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Main
Public Library.

Week 9

Tuesday, 10/17: No class: Fall break.

Thursday, 10/19: Essay Two due in
class.

Week 10

Tuesday,
10/24: Read Ray Oldenburg, “The Character of Third Places,” from The Great Good Place: Cafes, coffee shops,
community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they
get you through the day (1989), pp. 20-42.

Attendance is crucial. Missing class
(or attending class unprepared) will significantly affect your final grade. If
you do miss class, contact a classmate to find out what you missed and ask to
borrow her or his notes. Then, do it again with a different classmate. After
doing this, if you have questions email me.

Academic
Integrity

Plagiarism is using another person’s
words, works, and/or ideas without giving appropriate credit. Plagiarism is a
serious violation of academic honor and personal integrity and can result in
failing an assignment, being removed from this course, or even being asked to
leave USF. Plus, it’s just lazy.

Rules

1. No late work accepted.
2. In class and on field trips, no drinking out of non-reusable containers.

i am an associate professor of environmental studies and urban ag at the university of san francisco. i live in oakland with sarah and our daughter siena. contact me via the email address listed on this page.